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In the early hours of August 2, 2010, Bay Area
metal band Early Graves was traveling from
Oregon to Nevada, on tour in support of their
recently released second album, Goner, when
the van rolled. In an instant, the album title and
band name became horribly prophetic: Vocalist
Makh Daniels was killed, while guitarist Tyler
Jensen and drummer Dan Sneddon were severely
injured. Suddenly, Early Graves went from hungry
up-and-comers to wondering whether they’d ever
play another show. “We weren’t really sure if
we were gonna be a band anymore after Makh
died,” guitarist Chris Brock says. “For a while,
we really mulled over what we wanted to do. We
thought about changing the name. Makh was such
a big part of our lives, both as a close friend and a
band member.”
The band decided to press on. It took months for
Jensen and Sneddon to fully recover from their

injuries, but when they did the band enlisted their
old friend John Strachan, of Orange County-based
black/death metal outfit the Funeral Pyre, as Early
Graves’ new vocalist. The choice had greater
significance than a musical connection, since
Strachan and Daniels had been close friends, and
Strachan was actually in the van with Early Graves
when the accident happened. “We knew we
weren’t just gonna get some dude to sing for us,”
Brock says. “It had to make sense. One of the huge
parts of our decision to keep the band name was
that we didn’t want the thing that meant the most
to Makh—this band—to die, too. It was the one thing
we could control about the accident.”

facebook.com/earlygraves
Watch an interview with Early Graves and videos
of their performance from the Scion Metal Matinee
series at scionav.com/metal

PHOBIA
Story: J. Bennett
Photography: Gregory Bojorquez
When vocalist Shane McLachlan started Phobia
over two decades ago, he had no reason to think
it would last. Back then, grindcore was a relatively
new musical phenomenon, and not a particularly
viable one. “I never thought my life would be
designed around this band,” he says now. “When I
was young, I just wanted to be like Napalm Death.
This was in like 1990, and no one liked us. At the
time, everyone was into Pantera and Slayer. We’d
play backyard parties and everyone hated us.
People wanted to beat me up. Then we did our
first seven-inch on Relapse and it kind of took off,
but I never thought I’d be 40 years old and still
doing Phobia.”
Which brings us to 2011. Phobia are a celebrated
grindore band with a dizzying discography that
includes five full-lengths alongside countless
splits, 7-inches and EPs. In the process of creating
that catalog, the band developed a reputation for
injecting a sense of catchiness into a genre more
known for untethered speed and brutality. “I grew

up on old punk rock, so my influences are a lot
different than a lot of the grind bands out there
today. And I project that into Phobia’s music,”
McLachlan explains. “You can play grind all day
long, but if people don’t remember it, what the hell?
We all remember punk songs. But I think grindcore
is punk, and that’s what lacks in a lot of grindcore
bands today.”
Meanwhile, McLachlan—currently a resident of
Austin, Texas—is the sole remaining original
member of the band he co-founded in Orange
County 21 years ago. “I look at Phobia as a
collective of people,” he says. “Everybody I’ve
played with, I love. I’m the only original member left,
but we’re a family. And people want us to play, so
there’s no reason to stop.”
facebook.com/phobiagrindcore
Watch an interview with Phobia and videos of their
performance from the Scion Metal Matinee series
at scionav.com/metal

CRO-MAGS
Interview: J. Bennett
Photography: Gregory Bojorquez

As one of the greatest frontmen in the history
of hardcore, John Joseph of Cro-Mags
influenced a generation of mic-swingers with
his inimitable stage presence, his clean-living
philosophy and his performance on one of
the genre’s most important records: The
Age of Quarrel. Many Cro-Mags fans also
drew inspiration from Joseph’s hardscrabble
upbringing in the orphanages, foster homes
and streets of New York, but most people
didn’t know just how truly horrible that
upbringing was until he published his
autobiography, Evolution of a Cro-Magnon,
in 2007. Joseph recently reflected on his life,
just prior to a Cro-Mags performance at a
Scion Metal Matinee in Los Angeles.

There’s a story in your autobiography
about how you first got into
hardcore. It seems like that was a
pivotal moment in your life.

Absolutely. It was 1980. I was in the Navy, and I
was stationed in Norfolk, Virginia. I caught the Bad
Brains at the Taj Mahal. It was a very turbulent time
in my life, and those guys were like brothers from
the start. I was already into the punk rock scene
back in New York. I went onto the streets in 1977,
so I was already going to see the punk bands at
the clubs. But with the Bad Brains, there was more
consciousness behind it. It was the next level. They
were phenomenal musicians and great people.
What drew you punk rock initially?
I think I heard Iggy Pop back in 1974. I had just
gotten out of a really messed-up foster home that
I’d been in for seven years, and the aggressiveness
and anger of Iggy, and later the [Sex] Pistols in
1977, appealed to me. I was also into rock. I went
to see all the big bands, like [Led] Zeppelin, at the
Garden, but with punk it was like you were part of
the show. People were in your face. H.R. from the
Bad Brains would jump off the stage and land on
top of you. I was attracted to that.

S
Was there a specific
moment when you knew you
had to get onstage and do it
for yourself?
I was always writing as a kid. That’s
how I vented a lot of the stuff I was
going through. In 1978, I wrote some
lyrics—every other word was a curse—
and I handed them to this guy at Max’s
Kansas City called Von Lmo. He kinda
liked them, but he was also like, “Keep
trying!” But I have to say, I was really
influenced by H.R. from the Bad Brains.
He was responsible for really putting
that mic in my hand and telling me to
get out there. I originally wanted to be a
drummer, but luckily for the world, I was
terrible at it. H.R. told me to try singing.
What was your first time
onstage like?
My first time onstage was with the other
roadies of the Bad Brains, who formed
a band called Bloodclot. The Bad Brains
were Rastafarians, so every time something
would go wrong, they would be like,
“What the bloodclot? Fix the bloodclot!”
So since the roadies were in charge
of fixing everything, we formed a band
called Bloodclot. We opened up for the
Bad Brains on this southern tour that
they did. We played this storefront
shopping mall to like 100 people, but
the feeling was amazing. That was 1981,
so I was 19 years old.

Cro-Mags’ The Age of Quarrel
is held up as a classic, iconic
hardcore album. Do you feel like
that record is something you have
to live up to everytime you make
new Cro-Mags material?
Not really. I live my life a certain way—I’m drug-free,
alcohol-free, vegan. I’m training for a triathalon.
The message of the Cro-Mags is truth, and truth
is never subject to time, so what I wrote back in
the 1980s is still applicable today. And it’s from the
heart. With The Age of Quarrel, if you look around
at what’s happening on the planet today, [the
album] was kind of prophetic. The Bad Brains were
the same way with all the stuff they sang about. I
feel like there’s never been a better time to be a
punk rocker—a real punk rocker, not someone who
just buys a T-shirt.
Why is now the best time to be a
punk rocker?
Because punk rock is about revolution and higher
consciousness, and the world is really changing
these days. A lot of people are pessimistic, but
the best way to counteract all that is music. Music
has always been such a powerful force. You hear
that term “poseur” thrown around a lot, but there’s
a reason for that. It separates who’s for real from
who’s not. There’s no money in music anymore,
so you have to do it for the right reasons now. You
can’t get rich, you can’t be a rock star. But that’s
never why we did it. We did it because we were
moved by the spirit of punk rock.
facebook.com/pages/Cro-Mags/28749578197
Watch an interview with John Joseph of Cro-Mags
and videos of their performance from the Scion
Metal Matinee series at scionav.com/metal

KURT
BALLOU
Interview: Adam Shore
Photography: Matt Miller

In the last few years, Kurt Ballou has been on a
roll as a producer that is simply unparalleled.

While being the guitarist and producer for his own
band Converge, his exemplary production work
for others dates back to 2004, which you can hear

on much loved albums by Cave In, Disfear, Torche,
Trap Them, Magrudergrind, Black Breath and
Kvelertak. At the Scion Music(less) Music
Conference he spoke at length about his history
and process as a producer and engineer.

What was your entry into the metal
community?

There weren’t a lot of kids in my hometown, Andover,
Massachusetts, who were older than me who were into the stuff
that I was into. There wasn’t a lot of organized journalism for
underground music that was available at the local magazine shop.
We had Thrasher, and that was our window to what was happening
in punk. I would read it cover to cover, so I knew the histories
of these bands before I even heard them. Bands like Suicidal
Tendencies, Minor Threat, Bad Brains and Black Flag was the
stuff that they talked about, so I had some foundation of hardcore
there. Also, I’m from the first generation of children who were
raised with MTV. Even though I didn’t have cable, I had friends
who had it, so we’d get together and watch Headbangers Ball.
I had Metallica and Vio-lence and Slayer through that. So I’m
reading about and listening to punk on one side, and then I’ve got
the Bay Area thrash stuff on my other side. I was getting into the
new wave of British heavy metal from my neighbor’s brother, and
the foundation of hip-hop was happening then, so I was getting
into BDP and Run-DMC. And we started going to shows, so I
started to learn about local bands. My live foundation of music
was late-1980s Boston hardcore. I remember reading in Thrasher
about Slapshot and Wrecking Crew. Everything I had been reading
about was happening on the West Coast, so it seemed otherworldly
to me, but then I’d hear about these bands from Boston who were
playing shows 20 minutes from me, so I could get on the train and
see these band and actually be connected with this thing that I’m
reading about.

You didn’t produce the first Converge
releases, but were you in charge of
the early demos?

Yeah, I was always interested in the sonic side of the band. I’ve
always been in charge of the songwriting and the production side
of things, and the other guys care more about lyrics and art and
booking shows. We each have aspects of the band that we take
most interest in. I would say I produced the early Converge stuff,
but I didn’t engineer them. There’s a lot of times when the terms
“producer” and “engineer” get used interchangeably, but they’re

not the same thing. I’d say 60 to 70 percent of the records I’ve been
credited as a producer on, I was not a producer, I was an engineer.
There are very few records that I do where the band has the time
and the budget to have me produce their record.

When you say engineer,
you essentially mean recording
the band?

Yeah, the technical parts of recording a band: setting up
microphones, balancing the sounds of mics and preamps, EQs
and compression and later mixing. The producer has more to
do with the big picture stuff: making sure that the players are
the right players in the band, that the songs are refined and they
are recording at the right studio at the right time. The producer
interfaces with the label. It’s almost more management-type stuff.

So what kind of role did producers
like Steve Austin and Brian McTernan
have in Converge in the early days?

They were sort of the forerunners to what I do. Those were the first
people I recorded with that were inside the scene. I think a lot of
people my age had similar experiences where there weren’t a lot of
hardcore punk insiders in the recording game so you always had to
work with somebody from the outside world who was tolerant of
the racket you were going to make. That’s why I took an interest in
producing in the first place. We were recording with these people
who didn’t like our music but just needed a paycheck. I wanted
to understand the recording process more and take charge of
that stuff because I really believe that no one knows what your
band is supposed to sound like better than you do. If you have
the technical ability to record yourself, then you should. And if
you don’t, you should work with someone who understands where
you’re coming from, artistically and sonically. Going back to the
original question, Brian and Steve were people who had roots in
the hardcore scene and put together recording studios early in their
lives, so they were the people who showed me I could do this.

Were you watching and studying
those guys when they were recording
Converge?

To a certain extent. When Steve worked with Converge, I had
already been recording for a couple years and I wasn’t at the point
yet where I felt comfortable taking full control of the recording
of my own band. I hold my own band to higher standards than
anyone else, because it’s my own band. As much as I care about all
the bands I record, I care about my band more because it’s more
of a reflection of me. When we had more of a budget, we brought
in Steve for When Forever Comes Crashing, but three-quarters of
that record had been tracked when he came along. He mostly just
tracked the vocals and did the mixing. I was actually working a
day job at the time, so I wasn���t there for a lot of that. I was hoping
to learn a lot more from him, but I ended up missing a lot of that.
With Brian, I certainly watched what he did and studied him, but
there are recording engineers who are more technical and there
are recording engineers who are more artistic, and he falls in
line with the more artistic engineers. He’s more like a producer
who’s engineering because he has to, not because he wants to.
Engineering isn’t his passion, producing is his passion, so he tries
to make the recording process very transparent to the band. He
just cares what a record sounds like and wants to get it done, so he
wasn’t explaining a lot about what he was doing.

Where do you stand on
the technical and artistic engineer
division?

I’m probably in between. I’m a nerd, so I like to talk tech. I try
not to get bogged down in technical things because I want the
artist to focus on playing, but if people take an interest then I’m
willing to share stuff. Occasionally I work with someone who is a
fledgling recording engineer, and those people can be awesome to
work with, and they can also be incredibly annoying. When people
are asking me questions nonstop, then it gets in the way of what
I’m doing.

You have a limited amount of time.
Yeah, and I don’t want to train my competition either.

Since working with those two guys,
you’ve done 50 to 60 records. Have you
watched other producers since then?

Very little, actually. In a certain sense I wish I had gone with a
more traditional route in my recording education. It was never
a career I intended on having. It was just a career that I fell in
to. Had I intended on having this career, then I would have had
an internship. I would have worked in a commercial studio that
would have a really diverse clientele. I would have gotten a chance
to assist a lot of different engineers on a lot of different types of
music, and I never had that. I feel like the learning I have done has
gone a lot slower than what a lot of engineers have gone through.
I think there’s also a positive side effect of that: since I’ve mostly
had to develop on my own, I’ve developed my own style. It’s the
same with my guitar playing. It took me longer to get to the point
where I am, but I think what I do is more unique than what some
other people do.

When you became the central
producer for Converge, is that when
you built your own studio?

I started recording because I had an interest in demoing my own
material and I wanted to start to understand the recording process
so that when I went into someone else’s studio I wouldn’t feel so
lost. I’ve always had a need to understand things. When I buy
something new, I take it apart to see how it works. The signal flow
of a recording studio is pretty complicated and I never understood
how it works, so I wanted to have a better understanding of it.
This was before digital recording was so prevalent, so I bought a
half-inch four track and started recording my own demos in my
parents’ garage. Then friends’ bands would ask me to record their
7-inch, so I would start doing that stuff. Then I started charging ten
dollars an hour and I was able to buy a little bit of equipment. Then
I finished college and began working as a biomedical engineer and
had a decent salary, so I was able to start accumulating equipment
at a faster rate. Friends would ask me to record them, I’d get a
little money, buy better gear, get a bigger space. There wasn’t a
moment where I was like, I want to record Converge, so I have
to build a studio. It was more like, I have a studio, I can record
Converge, let’s do this here instead taking X amount of dollars
and giving it to some other person who doesn’t care as much about
the band as I do. How about I take that money and buy some new
equipment to be able to record the band better. Starting with the
No Heroes record, that’s the first time I did everything—produced,
engineered, mixed—on a Converge record. That’s when I thought
I finally had an ability level that was on par with anybody else
who we would have gotten to work on the record. Or at least my
enthusiasm and focus on the band was enough to overcome my
engineering shortcomings.

How did you make the decision to
choose the music path over the
non-music path?

I’ve always had a difficulty committing to decisions, so I’m on
parallel paths a lot of the time in a lot of different aspects of my
life. The decision was basically made for me. The project I was
working on at my job as a biomedical engineer was cancelled
and I was given the opportunity of either finding another job
within the company or taking an eight-month, full-pay and fullbenefits severance package. The music scene that we played in
was sort of blowing up at that point in time, so there was a lot
more opportunity for my band. We also put out Jane Doe on
September 4, 2001, and we knew when we put out that record
that it was by far our best record. We knew we had finally
come of age and were doing our own sound. It was no longer
derivative of other things. We had the right lineup of musicians
playing. I had just been laid off but I had the security blanket of
getting paid, and my studio was doing pretty well at the time, so
all these different things lined up for me. So I said, “Why don’t
I try to do this music thing for a little while?” I never set out to
have a career in it, but the stars were aligned in a certain way.

You have responsibilities in your
own band (recording, touring,
marketing, etc.) and then you
record so many other bands. How
do you work out the scheduling?

It’s tough, because I have to schedule time off for myself. It’s
tough to schedule creativity, but I have to say, “In four months
I’m free for these three days, so let’s schedule band practice and
write songs.” I just try to spend time doing some upfront work so
I’m somewhat prepared when that time comes and I don’t have
to try to be creative on the spot. I schedule my life a few months
in advance. I’m trying to back off of that and not overcommit
myself. I’m in a more comfortable financial position than I have
been in the past, so I don’t need to be working nonstop. I’m
turning down a lot of the work that comes my way. I’m trying to
make sure that when you see my name connected to something,
it’s something that I back in some way, whether it’s music I
love or friends I love whose music I want to get out there, even
if I don’t love their band. My name connected to something
should mean that thing reflects a certain quality. We live in a
consumerist world and I try to be very conscious, not only as
someone who is a consumer of things, but as someone who is
also a creator of products that are consumed.

How do you say no to musicians who
want to work with you?

It’s definitely hard. I don’t typically say no to my friends. There
are definitely times when I’m “too busy,” but in reality a lot of
the times I really am too busy. And the financial thing comes
into it. Charging what I charge has the side benefit of pricing
me out of some of the lower-end bands that I don’t really want
to record. Most of my business now is repeat business. And in a
lot of cases with new bands I haven’t worked with before, unless
they blow me away I’m not going to take on the project.

What do you expect from a band
before they walk into a session?

Depending on how long the session is and what the budget is,
I love to hear demos of songs, even if it’s practice recordings.
I think of myself as a documentarian, so if they’re doing an
album in two weeks or four weeks, I want to get involved in
the songwriting, I’ll get involved along the way and give
them suggestions. From an equipment perspective, I want
to know what they’re bringing in and that everything is in a
good state of repair. We talk about making sure that there are
new strings, that guitars are intonated, that there’s new drum
heads, that there’s no broken cymbals. I try to talk to a band
beforehand and figure out what their goals are on a record. I
try to figure out not what they are saying their goals are, but
what their goals actually are. A lot of times what a band says
and what they actually mean are different. I try to get myself
prepared for that, to get them to where they really want to be,
not where they say they want to be. Then I want the songs to
be done. My time is valuable, so if I’m sitting around waiting
for somebody else to figure out their stuff, then I get bothered.
When I’m in a creative mode I want to be creative and not sit
around waiting for someone to figure something out. Or if there
is some interpersonal problem with the band that I have to wait
for, that takes the wind out of my sails. When I’m in the studio
I just want to work, work, work until we’re done, then relax,
relax, relax. I don’t want the constant feeling of where I’m kind
of working but kind of social.

Do you have an overall
recording philosophy that makes
you appealing to bands?

My philosophy is mostly just to make the musicians as
comfortable as I can. Being that I’m from the community that
they’re typically from, there is a certain comfort level already.
We’ve got a lot of the same inside jokes and we get a lot of the
same references. There’s a lot of unspoken communication.
Even just hearing a band I have a feel for where they’re coming
from, so I can adapt my personal taste and my personal cheese
filter. It’s mostly about making sure people are comfortable in
their recording environment and trying not to have them make
too many concessions in the recording process. I record bands
all the time where we just set up live in my room like it’s band
practice. There’s no headphones, there’s just a bunch of mics
facing the drumset, and we’ll record a record that way. Other
times, if people want to be more meticulous and spend time on
each instrument, we do that too. Whatever they are accustomed
to doing and whatever they are comfortable doing is what I
want them to do, just so they can perform the best.
Watch the full interview with Kurt Ballou from the Scion
Music(less) Music Conference at scionav.com/mmc

Interview: Etan Rosenbloom
Photography: Kimberly Johnson
Dead. Abuse. Dirge. Noise. The titles of Wormrot’s
releases are as to-the-point as the explosive grindcore
songs they write. Just two years after releasing their
debut LP, these three Singaporean blastmasters have
perfected the art of abbreviated aural terror. They’ve
also devastated stages and poorly lit basements
around the world and joined the hallowed Earache
Records roster. Wormrot guitarist Rasyid told us all
about the band’s foundations and life in Singapore.
Singapore definitely isn’t known for its extreme
music scene. How did you first find out about grindcore?
My first exposure to fast music would simply be
Slayer. I didn’t know anything about grindcore, I
didn’t have many friends, let alone ones that were in
the punk or metal scenes. I searched and found Pig
Destroyer and there was no turning back. Even now,
you can still hear their influence in our music. The
term “grindcore” didn’t mean anything to me at that
point. I thought PxDx was just a metal band playing
fast, and I liked that.
Did it take awhile to develop your sound, or was it
pretty immediate?
When Wormrot first started, we wanted to play
deathgrind. But I wasn’t that good on guitar, I kept
playing punk and thrash riffs. So I just started writing
songs with those riffs, [vocalist] Arif caught on, and
we’ve been playing that ever since.
Your bandmates worked together during their
mandatory National Service stints. How does
army life contrast with being in a band?
All of us served in the National Service. I was a
Transport Supervisor 3rd Sergeant. Obviously, life
in the army is rigid and strict, so whatever’s thrown at

the band is nothing compared to what we got in the
army. But there are valuable skills we learned in the
army that come in handy without us even realizing it.
Is there anything quintessentially Singaporean
about Wormrot?
Musically, no, but how the band works, maybe. We
run a tight ship, do things responsibly and are as
efficient as possible. It’s not because we have to,
but because we want to. We don’t drink excessively
before the show so we won’t screw up the set,
because we believe in giving our paying audiences
the sharpest performance every night. Sure, there’ll
be one or two nights where one of us (usually me)
will forget that responsibility and drink a little too
much and ruin the set, but everything goes back to
normal the next day.

What are some of the misconceptions about
Singapore that you’ve encountered on the road?
That Singapore consists of only Chinese people,
or that Singapore is in China. These two are the
common ones. Sometimes people will even correct
us and say, “You’re Indonesians!” No, we’re not.
What do you do for day jobs?
Currently, none of us has a job. We just came back
from our European tour. Every time we tour, some
of us have to quit our jobs and find new ones after
the tour. I was lucky enough to retain my job for the
first few tours, but not this time. It’s an endless and
unavoidable cycle.

How do you progress from each release to the
next when your songs are typically between 30
and 100 seconds long?
We just write songs that we would want to listen
to. We only know how much we’ve progressed
months after the album is released and we listen to
it ourselves, comparing it to the album before it. The
songs are short, but that does not mean we spent less
time and put in less effort. It isn’t easy to make a
short song sound complete. Grindcore might sound
mindless to some who call it a cheap metal rip-off,
but to us it’s an art in itself.
If you had to write a ten-minute song, what do
you think it would sound like?
It would sound like a waste of time.
facebook.com/wormrot
Hear Scion A/V Presents: Wormrot — Noise, a
collection of five new songs, at scionav.com/wormrot

If Slayer’s Reign In Blood is considered the ultimate
thrash album—and it is—then Repulsion’s Horrified is
the Reign In Blood of grindcore. Like Reign, it was
recorded in 1986, but it wasn’t released until five years
later, long after Repulsion had broken up. The proof of
its legacy lies in the fact that Repulsion never recorded
a second album and yet they still play to crowds of
thousands at metal festivals all over the globe. We sat
down with Repulsion bassist/vocalist Scott Carlson,
guitarist Matt Olivo and new second guitarist Marissa
Martinez a few hours before Martinez performed
her first full show with the band at the Scion Metal
Matinee in Los Angeles.
Does Repulsion have a specific musical philosophy?
Scott Carlson: I think the philosophy behind the
band to begin with was to outdo all of our heroes in
every way possible. Maybe not in terms of musical
virtuosity, but extremity. If there was a band we liked
that had gory lyrics, I wanted our lyrics to be gorier. I
wanted the guitar riffs and the drumming to be faster
and heavier. We wanted our music to be faster and
heavier than everything that came before us.
So it was competitive?
Carlson: No, I don’t think we were competitive with
other bands, because we were huge fans of everyone
around us. It was more because we were fans of
extreme music. We wanted to come up with the most
extreme music, something we could be fans of. And
it worked for us. For a very brief period of time we
were really focused on what we were doing. People
still hold the Horrified album in high regard because
of its extremity, so I think we achieved our goal. In
the context of 1986, it’s still a pretty extreme and
heavy record. But it wasn’t a competitive thing at all.
It was more out of our love of extremity.
Marissa, you were a Repulsion fan before you joined
the band. What about their music attracted you?
Marissa Martinez: When I heard Horrified, it
just spoke to me. When I pick up a guitar and start
noodling, I play just like these guys do. So that really
resonated with me, plain and simple. And that’s why
my own band, Cretin, is kind of like the second
coming of Repulsion. But I’m totally honored to be a
part of this band right now.
Now that you’re a member of the band, do you have
a different perspective on Repulsion than you did
when you were a spectator?
Martinez: Honestly, the music is more complicated
than I thought it was. That really surprised me. A lot
of the stuff I wrote for my own band is really dumbed
down from what these guys did initially. Scott told me

that when they originally wrote this stuff, they played
it slower, so there were more complicated things in
there to spice it up. But now we’re playing it full on.
When Repulsion first started out, you were
trading tapes with other underground metal
bands from all over the world. Did you get the
sense that you were doing something different?
Matt Olivo: Definitely. When you looked around at
underground metal in those days, people were
emulating the cutting edge bands—Possessed and
Slayer and bands like that. There was nobody doing
what we were doing. In fact, that’s part of the reason
that Repulsion exists in the strange state that it does
today. I hate to say it, but we were ahead of our time.
I know it sounds arrogant, but we really were. We
couldn’t get signed, nobody would take us seriously,
so we broke up after about a year. Everybody moved
on. I was in the Army when our album was finally
released, five years after we recorded it. By then,
journalists and other key people in the underground
started gushing over it. Over time, it became known
as a paradigm or an evolutionary linchpin for extreme
music and grindcore. When you talk to people about
who started grindcore, the usual names that come
up are Napalm Death, Carcass and Terrorizer. But if
you talk to the guys in those bands, they say it was
Repulsion, which is a great honor. We just didn’t have
enough momentum to get our career started back then.
But we’re not complaining. It worked out in the long run.
Repulsion recorded one album 25 years ago and
fans consistently flock to your shows. Meanwhile,
most active bands put out an album every two or
three years in order to keep an audience. Do you
feel like you’ve defied the industry standard?
Carlson: When we recorded Horrified, we were on a
mission of extremity. Once we finished it, we felt like
we said all we had to say on the subject. We’ve written
other grindcore songs since then, but they just don’t
have that same youthful energy. There’s something
aside from the riffs, there’s an intangible element to
music made by young people that you can’t put your
finger on. It’s an inspirational magic that happens
when people are all on the same page. It stands
alone, and if we tried to add to it now, it wouldn’t be
Repulsion. We can still play those old songs with the
same type of energy, but I think writing new songs
with that kind of energy just isn’t possible for us
anymore. We’ve all sort of moved on from it. And it’s
not like that happened a few years later. It happened
almost immediately after we recorded Horrified.
So many extreme metal bands from that era have
reformed and made new albums that aren’t that
great. Does your reluctance to write new Repulsion
songs also have to do with not wanting to tarnish
the band’s legacy?
Carlson: We could write a new Repulsion record, and
any number of record labels would give us the money
to make it. But it would probably do more harm than
good to the overall Repulsion legacy because it just
wouldn’t be the same. It would be older guys trying
to recapture something, and it would disappoint too
many people.

Do you feel differently about the songs on Horrified
now than you did when you wrote them?
Olivo: When we’re onstage, I sink right back into it. I
relive the dream and desire I had when we were young.
There’s nothing different.
Carlson: The beauty of playing these songs now is
that the crowds are bigger and we get to travel to more
exotic places than when we were playing on a stage
made out of milk crates back in Flint, Michigan. But
when we start to play, that old feeling comes back
instantly. It’s not hard to conjure up the energy or
motivation to play those songs at all.
Repulsion has influenced countless extreme metal
bands. Many prominent metal musicians even
have Repulsion tattoos. Is there a certain weight
of responsibility that goes along with that?
Olivo: I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable when
people come up to me and expect me to be so me kind
of underground metal legend. I mean, I was just a kid
who worked really hard on my band, just like so many
other teenagers did. I won’t let my ego claim any stake
over what happened.

Carlson: It always blows my mind when I see that
crappy little zombie from the Horrified album cover
tattooed on some guy’s entire back. I sketched that at
my kitchen table when I was just a kid, you know? I’ve
met people from all kinds of bands with Repulsion
tattoos on their bodies, and it’s really strange to see
that after all these years. It’s amazing.
facebook.com/repulsion
Watch an interview with Repulsion and videos of their
performance from the Scion Metal Matinee series at
scionav.com/metal

ohn Baizley

John Baizley is a founding member
of the band Baroness and also an
illustrator who exclusively uses
traditional media. He has created
distinctive artwork for album covers,
posters and merchandise for Baroness,
as well as for other acts, including
Kylesa, Torche, Kvelertak and
Pig Destroyer.
I’ve never really chosen favorites between music and
art. To me, it is imperative that you have a full on
artistic vision for your band. There are a handful of
bands that have done that in the past and have shown
what the power of that can be. I’m talking about a band
like Pink Floyd, where press photos aren’t the image
that you relate to the band. Or Tool, where you’re very
unaware of what the human beings in the band look
like. You’re more aware of the overall aesthetic. That
was the impetus to even start making music and art
again when I did. It wasn’t a case where the music
comes first, and then the artwork. I decided to do both,
because I can. I said, “Why don’t I make the music an
art project, and the art sort of a musical project?”
There’s a certain textural quality to the art I’m
creating that seems to mirror, reflect back or drive the
music that I make. I don’t think there are very many
musicians, and I don’t think there are very many
artists, who have tried to develop both aspects of
their creativity in tandem. But for me, it just seemed
obvious. After years and years of making visual art
that had no music related to it, and making music that
had no visual art related to it, I thought that this just
makes sense. There is always a direct tie between one
and the other.
As far as my approach is concerned, it might not
look like it, but I’m much more process-oriented than
result-oriented. That means that once it’s done, it’s
done. There’s no end point to the art that I make, it’s
just, “Stop and start something new.” The pleasure I
derive from creation is the process of creating, it’s not
looking at something that is finished. In many ways,

my approach is just a reflection of my personality:
anxiety-driven manic obssesiveness with very little
attention paid to cleanliness or structure. Very often,
when it’s working, I’m just exorcising all this energy.
And the way that presents itself in my art is what seems
to be a meticulous attention to detail, but really is my
constant battle to create simple images and relatable
icons. The stuff I make can be really obtuse and really
angular, but I always start my projects thinking in
terms of streamlined compositions and very focused
color palates. I think it’s sort of a therapeutic thing
where the more I can just work at a piece—whether
it’s with a pen or a paintbrush or my finger or a pencil
or a knife—the more I’m just working things out
of my system.
As told to Eric Ducker
aperfectmonster.com
Watch a panel about Visual Art’s Role in Music
featuring John Baizley from the Scion Music(less)
Music Conference at scionav.com/mmc

LANDMINE MARATHON
Photography: Jeremiah Cooper
You wouldn’t guess it when you hear her screaming her
face off with Phoenix-based deathgrind outfit Landmine
Marathon, but vocalist Grace Perry wasn’t always into
metal. Unlike most headbanging diehards, Perry spent
her teenage years rocking a pink mohawk, listening to pop
punk. Landmine Marathon’s latest album, Gallows, on
Prosthetic, has exactly nothing in common with Perry’s
youthful listening habits. Instead, the band churns out a
merciless blast-barrage that invokes the chaotic spirit of
early Earache Records masters Bolt Thrower, Carcass
and Napalm Death. Here, Perry talks about her late-stage
transition from punk to metal.
I definitely did not aspire to be a death metal vocalist. If
you had talked to me when I was a kid, this is not what I
would’ve said I wanted to do. When I was growing up, I
was listening to punk rock—bands like Face to Face and
Propagandhi. I had the pink mohawk and loved punk rock
through and through. When I was 15, I started my first band,
which was an all-girl punk rock band. When I was about 18,
I started another band with a few of my friends from high
school. We called ourselves Osama Bin SARS. It wasn’t a
screamo band, but we screamed because we didn’t know
how to sing. We would also dress in offensive costumes just
to piss people off. It was a lot of fun. The guy who became
the bass player in Landmine Marathon was at one of our
shows and later approached me on MySpace to ask if I was
interested in starting a metal band. I didn’t really listen to
metal at that time. I mean, everybody knows about Slayer
and bands like that, but I just didn’t listen to that stuff.
But I figured, sure, I’ll go for it. And I’ve been in love with
metal ever since.

The album that really converted me was Slaughter of
the Soul by At the Gates. The first time I heard it, I was
enthralled. I probably listened to that album about 40 times
the first week I had it. I didn’t know that this kind of music
could be that amazing. That was definitely a style I wanted
to emulate, along with all the other old Earache bands. I
kinda feel like a poseur because I didn’t get into metal until
I was 19, but I love it just as much as the next person. There’s
no other genre that’s this extreme or this outlandish. I think
it’s the purest form of expression.
I know I don’t look or sound like it onstage, but I’m actually
pretty girly. I’m not always wearing combat boots and band
T-shirts. The clothes I wear at home are a lot different from
the clothes I wear on tour, and that’s because I don’t want
the clothes I wear at home to get trashed. On our first tour, I
brought girl clothes. I didn’t really understand what it
meant to be a metal singer. You have to be aggressive up
there and I’m not a super aggressive person. I would never
harm a fly, but when I’m onstage I transform into a person
I never knew I had inside of me. Being onstage that first
time, I realized the kind of power this music has. And as the
singer in a metal band, you can do whatever you want. You
don’t have that in other genres of music. I feel like I can go
into a trance, hit myself with the mic, get in people’s faces,
whatever. And it’s not like I’m trying to impress people
when I do things like that, that’s just what the music does to
me. I can’t help it. And that’s why I love it.
As told to J. Bennett
facebook.com/landmine.marathon
Watch an interview with Landmine Marathon and videos
of their performance from the Scion Rock Fest at
scionav.com/rockfest

In the late 1990s, Rayny Forster was playing in punk
and metal bands and booking shows in Windsor,
Ontario. At one gig, he engaged in a little too much
audience participation and landed himself in the
emergency room. The doctor who saw Forster that
night called him a “moshpit tragedy.”
Forster remembered those words in 2006, when he
decided to start his own record label. “I didn’t have
much aspiration at first,” he says. “I mainly just
wanted to put out releases for a few bands I knew or
had been part of. After a year and a half, I decided
that I didn’t want to spend all my time packing
boxes and dealing with distributors. That stuff is no
fun, and I wasn’t much good at it anyway.”
In late 2007, Forster stopped producing physical
releases and switched to an all-digital download
model. But his real innovation was allowing
customers to name their own price for all the
albums, including releases from Oakland stonerrock soldiers Devil’s Son-In-Law, Finnish grind
dealers Hangover Overdose and even English crust
punk legends Amebix. “As an artist, it’s the artistic
side of things that’s important to me,” Forster says.
“Now I don’t have to worry if a CD will sell enough
units for me to break even. If I like something that
a band submits, I release it, plain and simple. I still
have a lot of work to do, but it’s a whole different
path now—one that hasn’t been tread before,
and that’s exciting.”

Since converting to the all-download format, Moshpit
Tragedy’s roster has expanded to include high-profile
crust punk and grind bands like Extreme Noise Terror,
Phobia and Total F*****g Destruction. Unsurprisingly,
Forster’s generous pay-whatever policy hasn’t exactly
made him—or the bands—rich. When Moshpit
Tragedy released Amebix’s Monolith for 18 months
starting in March 2008, it was downloaded over 4,000
times but pulled in only a few hundred dollars. But
Forster believes making money isn’t actually the point.
“Many of the older titles have been downloaded eight
or nine thousand times now, but are only paid for on
rare occasions,” he explains. “Even if it just helps
bands on a promotional level, I think they are happy
doing something positive for their fans. And since my
goals are not purely financial, I consider the label itself
to be a success.”
moshpittragedy.com

SCENE REPORT:

NEW YORK
Photographer and writer Fred Pessaro is the metal/
punk editor at the website Brooklyn Vegan. As a
live event promoter, he independently books over 80
shows per year. We asked him to share his current
favorites in the New York metal community.
Precious Metal
My friend Curran Reynolds, who is the current
drummer for Wetnurse and Today Is The Day, puts
together a weekly thing called Precious Metal. He
has it at Lit Lounge in Manhattan. It’s basically an
avenue for local and some touring bands to play. He
always has at least three bands. I’m hesitant to say
it’s 100% great bands, but more often than not, it’s
a good night.
Gang Signs
The other day I did this show with this band Gang
Signs. They are a two-piece, but will be becoming a
three-piece. It’s like death metal meets Black Cobra.
It’s pretty brutal. I’m way into them.
Hospital Productions
There’s a place that’s great for noise and black metal
releases called Hospital Productions. It’s run by
Dominick Fernow, who is known as Prurient. He’s
also part of Cold Cave right now. Hospital is a very
specific spot. They have great black metal, crazy
noise and a lot of weird/interesting stuff there.
The Acheron & The Anchored Inn
Both the Acheron and the Anchored Inn are in
Bushwick, right next to each other. Acheron is
kind of a DIY/punk spot, but there are a lot of
metal shows that go on there. And there are a lot of
metal people who hang out at the Anchored Inn in

general. You can get a drink at the Anchored Inn
next door and then check out a show. There’s usually
something interesting going on in at the Acheron.
Youth of Today recently played a secret show there.
Psychic Limb
I put out a record with this band Psychic Limb.
They’re a four-piece hard grind crew. They have
one LP called Queens on Clairvoyant Recordings.
It’s 14 songs in 12 minutes and it was probably one
of my favorite records of 2011. I’m not just saying
that because I was involved, everyone who touches
it really enjoys it.
Saint Vitus
Saint Vitus in Greenpoint is kind of the new kid
on the block. It’s run by some of the guys in this
band called Primitive Weapons. They have shows
there that vary from hardcore to new goth-y bands
that would fit in on Pendu Sound Recordings or
Sacred Bones.
Duff’s
Duff’s is a New York institution when it comes to
metal. It’s in Williamsburg, but it used to be in a
different place. They don’t really have shows there,
it’s more of an after party spot. Back in the day, if
Slayer played in town, they might come to Duff’s
afterwards to have a drink. It’s kind of ingrained in
the New York scene.
fotonegatif.tumblr.com

Watch panels, interviews and workshops
to dev elop a ca r eer in music

Each presentation, filmed in high definition,
exists as a digital resource at:

scionav.com/mmc

SCION STREAMING RADIO

TOP_PICKS

A true staple of the extreme music landscape, Scott
Kelly founded the band Neurosis more than 25 years
ago. He also is a member of Shrinebuilder’s megaheavy dream lineup. On his KMBT Radio show for
Scion Streaming Radio, Kelly plays both metal and
some decidedly non-metal artists. Here, he discusses
what he’s been listening to.
Amebix, Sonic Mass (Easy Action)
The best thing I’ve heard in a long time, years really,
is that new Amebix record, Sonic Mass. It’s as a
record should be. It takes you on a trip, it tells a story.
The dynamics within the record are so varied that it
constantly keeps your attention. I think that the music
speaks for itself, but the words those guys bring have
some sort of empowerment to them. I think they are
guys who write from a deeper place. The message
has an otherworldly feel to it. It makes you feel good
about doing something different. Amebix has been
my favorite band since I was 18 years old, but this is
the first record they’ve done in 20 years. There’s still
the same guitarist and bassist, but they have a new
drummer. I think he helped facilitate them moving
forward, but it’s amazing to take that much time off
and come back with something that is so deep. They
were a very primary influence on Neurosis for all
the reasons I spoke of before. They can be political
without actually talking about politics, but they’re
mainly like a spiritual band.
George Jones
I’ve been spending a lot of time going back and
listening to old George Jones lately. I’ve always
listened to a lot of old country music and he’s been
the one I’ve been focused on because of his voice and
his storytelling. He has this sprawl about his songs
that appeals to me. Waylon Jennings is definitely my
guy, and I guess Hank Williams is everybody’s guy,
but George Jones is one of those guys where I’ve
had a lot of his music over the years, and I listen to

it, but most recently I’ve been delving into it deeper

and appreciating it more. Some of his stuff is more
uptempo, which typically isn’t my thing, but I like
the way he does it. I’m always attracted to the voice,
and he’s got one of those voices where once you start
listening to it, you crave it.

Rwake, Rest (Relapse)
Those guys have really stepped into their own.
They’ve been working very hard for a number of years
and I think it’s really showing in their songwriting and
in the depth of emotion that they’re able to reach in
their music now.
Swans
The last record they did, My Father Will Guide Me Up
a Rope to the Sky, was fantastic. They’re another band
that went away and came back and did an amazing
record. And apparently they have another one that’s
being finished right now. I had the opportunity to see
them in April in Holland and it was amazing, as usual.
They’re basically back in business. It’s some of the
same people, some different, but they’re still a band
that lives on their own plane, unparalleled.
Adrian Sherwood
I was able to see him for the first time last summer
and that was fantastic. He was out of this world. I’m
not really a DJ sort of guy, it’s not really my thing, but
when you can see what someone like him can really do
with it, it changes your perspective completely. It’s just
so aggressive, so intense, and it’s all coming from his
brain in there somewhere.
Listen to KMBT Radio on Scion Streaming Radio at
scionav.com/radio/channel5

Early Graves at the Scion
Metal Matinee in Los Angeles

Exodus at Scion Label Showcase:
Nuclear Blast

The Solitary Arts at the A Product of
Design opening at SCION Installation LA

JB Lab at the A Product of Design
opening at SCION Installation LA

Scott Miller of
Sutekh Hexen at
the Scion Music(less)
Music Conference

Scion Metal Zine 5

Explore Scion Metal Zine Volume 5. Roam these pages and dig deep into one of the greatest frontmen in the history of hardcore, John Joseph of Cro-Mags. Discover how he influenced a generation of mic-swingers with his inimitable stage presence, his clean-living philosophy and his performance on The Age of Quarrel. Other featured artists include Kurt Ballou, Repulsion, Wormrot, Landmine Marathon, Moshpit Tragedy, and Phobia.